Hike in parking charges

A review of car parking charges will be considered by members of the Burnley Council executive tomorrow.

Suggested increases include a jump in fees for short stay shoppers' car parks from £1 to £1.50 for parking of between two to four hours.

Recommendations include that the cost for visits of under one hour to remain the same at 50p, for visits of between one and two hours to go up from 80p to £1 and for four hours plus to stay at £4.

Car parks affected are Elizabeth Street, Grimshaw Street, Parker Lane, Standish Street, Massey Street, Edward Street, Cow Lane, King Street 2, Centenary Way, Orchard Bridge and, on a Saturday and Sunday only, Victoria. Proposed increases at the St Peter's multi-storey car stack in Church Street used as both a short stay and long stay park are more modest. Again it is recommended that visits of under one hour should remain the same at 50p.

The cost of visits of 1-2 hours may rise from 80p to £1, 2-4 hours from £1 to £1.20, 4-6 hours £1.40 to £1.50 and over six hours remaining unaltered at £2.

Secretary of Burnley Chamber of Trade Rita Walsh said: "We are not in favour of increases. I think people will be upset about it.

"It can be considered that £1.50 for up to four hours shopping in Burnley town centre is reasonable but I would expect an outcry."

She added: "The main town centre shopping car parks are privately owned and not affected by this. Our main concern isto fight to retain on-street and other shopper car parks in the town."

A report to tomorrow's meeting says the suggested charges have been discussed by the budget strategy group to increase charges and fees by six per cent in the coming financial year.

It says it is not possible to give exact figures of how much extra income will be generated.

Those include the loss of the Centenary Way car park when the Tesco store development takes place, the proposed redesignation of the Town hall car park for shoppers and the possible introduction of a residents 's only scheme inthe Top O' the Town area which could lead to more people parking at St Peter's. If approved the increases will come into affect in April.

Shoppers today hit out at the proposals.

Kath Hanson, 33, a childminder from Medina Close in Accrington said: "£1.50 is still not that expensive, but it may put people off coming into Burnley. It doesn't help does it?"

Saqib Khawaja is a Burnley Market trader who has just started to use the Standish Street car park because of price increases at the privately owned Millennium car park in Burnley town centre.

He said: "It's ridiculous. We came here because of Millennium, but it might not work out cheaper now that this is going up."

Saqib said that they need to bring their cars into the town centre, so they don't have any choice, but shoppers do.